The Green Road

-- The GatheringA darkly glinting novel set mainly in a small town on Ireland's Atlantic coast, The Green Road The children of Rosaleen Madigan grow up in the West of Ireland, in a world that is about to change. When her oldest brother, Dan, announces he will enter the priesthood, young Hanna watches her mother retreat in sorrow to her bed. In the years that follow, three of the children leave home for lives they could never have imagined. Dan for the frenzy of New York under the shadow of AIDS; Emmet for the backlands of Mali where he learns the fragility of love and order; actress Hanna for modern-day Dublin and the trials of motherhood. In her early old age, their difficult, wonderful mother, Rosaleen, decides to sell the family home, the house she was born in and where she raised her own family, with all its ghosts and memories. Her adult children visit for Christmas, carrying with them the complications of their present lives and the old needs of childhood as they are brought face to face with their mother's ageing and the effects her decision will have on them all. In this extraordinary and intimate story of one family, Enright has also given us a portrait of our times. This is a major work of fiction by one of the most exciting writers of our time.

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From Library Staff

(Ireland) Spanning thirty years and three continents, The Green Road tells the story of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigan family, and her four children. Ardeevin, County Clare, Ireland. 1980. When her oldest brother Dan announces he will enter the priesthood, young Hanna watches her mother howl ... Read More »

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Enright is a remarkable writer – crisp, sometimes humorous, and beautifully controlled with the Irish drama as we follow the inter-family complexities. The author’s voice is so authentic as she switches locales and time periods, fleshing out each character and their intertwined lives over a thirty year period. Great storytelling. Emotionally charged.

I've just read 'the Green Road' and am impressed. Not with all. Not as a novel, and the climax was no such thing. But Rosaleen's `story' by itself was good poetry again and again, it brought me to tears more than once, and the strong sense that this was a real family with real connections to a real woman kept me in it, to the end.

Set in County Clare, this novel tells the story of a mother and her four children, each story told separately, almost like a short story. They come together as adults at Christmas. Each character is broken in some way, but is partially restored by his or her family. The backdrop to the novel is the negative impact of the "Celtic Tiger" on Ireland. Lovely to read, like all of Enright's books.

Liked this book a lot. I could feel each character so clearly and was able to give each a face and way of being. Loved the complete "Irishness" of the story and the land. Will look for another of her writings.

This book captured Irish life pretty well. The gathering of family at Christmas (for some out of obligation), the gathering of neighbours to help when help was needed. This is true to form. There were 2 parts they really stick out to me as typical Irish. The first was how well described it was for Constantine going through the supermarket buying food but forgetting something and feeling so guilty about it, she had to go back in among the throng. You already know she doesn't have time for this but it's easier than listening to everyone complain after. The second was how well Emmett, in seeing the bigger world view, described the world view of his mother (page 212-213). That was well described!

The only thing I didn't like was that I felt the treatment of boys v girls about 10-20 years behind the times e.g. girls cleaning up after dinner, but the boys allowed off to do what they liked. This would not have been typical of this generation.

Just grabbed this book off the "hot new books" or whatever its called shelf on the way out the door of the library. Ireland, family, homecoming, etc. Hmmm, sounds sweet....how could I go wrong?

My latest technique in reading books is flipping open to the middle somewhere and reading a paragraph or two. If it grabs, then its a go.

With this story, I open up to the page where someone named Dan is jumping into bed with some guy named Loco or Ludo (?)in an interestingly junk-filled house for masochistic sex. Which Dan, apparently, doesn't like.

Ho Hum.
The story is fine. I expected better writing: though I don't like when an author is labouring to impress the reader, I do like to read the occasional sentence that I think was well crafted and that I want to re-read and squeeze the loveliness or cleverness from. This never happened in The Green Road.

A wonderful story that spans thirty years and three continents as it follows the story of the Madigan family from County Clare Ireland. The story of family matriach Rosaleen, and her four children, Dan, Emmet, Hanna and Constance is rich, complex and beautiful. This new novel by Man Booker prize winner Anne Enright is a must read.

Quotes

"Emmett blamed his mother. You could tell Rosaleen about disease, war and mudslides and she would look faintly puzzled, because there were, clearly, much more interesting things happening in the County Clare.... A local gossip, that is what his mother allowed, and only of a particular kind. Marriages, deaths, accidents: she lived for a head-on collision, a bad bend in the road. Her own ailments of course, other people's diseases".